er more fanatic Mahometan sect, and word
came back to Europe that pilgrimage was stopped.

The crusades followed. A great mass of warriors from every nation of the
West, men who certainly had never intended to go on pilgrimage
themselves, were roused to what seems a somewhat perverse anger of
religious devotion. Under the lead of Godfrey of Bouillon they marched
eastward, saw the wonders of Constantinople, marvellous indeed to their
ruder eyes, defeated the sultans of Asia Minor and of Antioch, and ended
by storming Jerusalem, and erecting there a Christian kingdom where
Mahometanism had ruled for nearly five hundred years.[20]

[Footnote 20: See _The First Crusade_, page 276.]

Of course, a great flow of pilgrims followed them. Religious orders of
knighthood were formed[21] to help defend the shrine of Christ and to
extend Christian conquest farther through the surrounding regions.
Travel began again. Europe, after having forgotten Asia for seven
centuries, was introduced once more to its languor, its splendor, and
its vices. The Aryan peoples had at last filled full their little world
of Western Europe. They had reached among themselves a state of law and
union, confused and weak, perhaps, yet secure enough to enable them once
more to overflow their boundaries and become again the aggressive,
intrusive race we have seen them in earlier days.

[Footnote 21: See _Foundation of the Order of Knights Templars_, page
301.]

FEUDALISM: ITS FRANKISH BIRTH AND ENGLISH DEVELOPMENT

NINTH TO TWELFTH CENTURY

WILLIAM STUBBS

(That social system--however varying in different times and places--in
which ownership of land is the basis of authority is known in history as
feudalism. From the time of Clovis, the Frankish King, who died in A.D.
511, the progress of the Franks in civilization was slow, and for more
than two centuries they spent their energies mainly in useless wars. But
Charles Martel and his son, Pepin the Short--the latter dying in
768--built up a kingdom which Charlemagne erected into a powerful
empire. Under the predecessors of Charlemagne the beginnings of
feudalism, which are very obscure, may be said vaguely to appear.
Charles Martel had to buy the services of his nobles by granting them
lands, and although he and Pepin strengthened the royal power, which
Charlemagne still further increased, under the weak rulers who followed
them the forces of the incipient feudalism again became active, and the